Inherited Traits II
by chezchuckles
Summary: You asked for it. Sequel to Inherited Traits. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**Inherited Traits II**

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><p>"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."<p>

― Anaïs Nin

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><p>"Doesn't change anything," he whispered, holding her hand tightly even as panic crawled up her throat.<p>

She took a deep breath and met his eyes. He was giving it back. She didn't want it back. She wanted him to hold her to it.

"Yes it does."

His hand clutched hers like a reflex. "Kate." He stared at her, the blood draining from his arm, as if trying to be sure she was real. "I'd never wonder."

Her chest eased; she gave him a flickering smile. Good.

The nurse came back from the front of the trailer, exclaimed over the bag. "Look at this. Your blood's really pumping. Let me change this out-"

Kate ducked her head and averted her eyes as the nurse changed the bag. She could practically feel Castle laughing at her.

When the nurse moved away again, she raised her head.

He was. Laughing at her. Silent but full of mirth.

"Shut up."

He laced his fingers through hers. "I just find it so funny that this bothers you."

"It doesn't bother me," she said. "I'd just rather not look at it."

The laughter fell away and she realized she was staring at him, that his eyes were searching hers for traces of resignation, regret. He wasn't going to find any.

The nurse came back and checked on Castle again, held the bags up, hot and red, and Kate looked down at their two hands, feeling her heart slow.

The movements around her fell away. The moment was now. This was the time. She might not be perfect, she might not be good enough. She knew she wasn't. But to remain as they were. . .that would do more damage. To them both.

She was damaged enough as it was.

His hand loosened, shook hers off, and she lifted her head with a protest on her lips. The nurse was easing him up, a band-aid in the crook of his arm, and he had to hold the cotton ball in place. She stood as well, slid her arm through his good one.

He pressed her arm against his ribs with his elbow and gave her a wink. "I'm fine. All good."

She expected him to pass out; she really did. But he walked to the back and sat down at the little table, his eyes lighting up at the package of M&Ms. Kate laughed and grabbed them for him, ripped it open.

He grinned and opened his mouth for her to feed him.

"Don't push your luck."

Kate handed them over, sitting beside him at the table. He crunched into a candy and kept grinning at her, like he couldn't stop.

Why had the knowledge of his secret pushed her to this? Because it was, after all, such a secret? Or was it because his commitment to his daughter, his daughter in everything but blood, was such an overwhelming statement about his character? About the man he was. About the man he would be with Kate.

He didn't reach for another M&M. He reached for her hand again instead and sat staring at her for a long moment.

"Can I tell you a story?"

She grinned. "You're the one who might faint from blood loss. Sure you're up for it?"

"Definitely. And I never faint."

"What about when Lanie-"

"I mean for normal things."

"Internal organs are normal-"

"Let me rephrase. For things that most people don't ever see." He narrowed his eyes at her and shook his head. "Now. My story?"

"Go ahead."

"I'm trying to be romantic and you're bringing up autopsies."

"Romantic?" she murmured, lifting her lips in a half-smile.

"Okay, not the best of places, but still. Cut me some slack. I'm suffering from blood loss."

She raked her eyes down his body, back up, and met his suddenly flushed gaze. "You're not suffering one bit."

"Jeez, Kate. Wait to do that until I can do something about it. Now I'm gonna have to sit here until I. . .uh, suffer a different kind of blood loss so that we can get out of here."

She laughed in surprise, not expecting the crudeness of his comment to hit her so viscerally. His hand tightened around hers.

"My story."

"Yeah," she said, her heart already pounding.

"You gonna keep interrupting me?"

"Tell your story, Castle."

He smiled at her, slow and sensual, and a string connecting her heart to her guts pulled taut as if strummed.

"I've been concocting this story in my head for awhile now. For ages. It's goes like this. One day, Kate, you turn to look at me and something different is in your face. Something open. Like it is right now."

She couldn't help it, couldn't control it, whatever it was he saw.

"I reach out and brush my hand over your jaw-"

His fingers were feathering her skin, light and gentle.

"-and you lean in and kiss me."

She didn't, but he didn't seem to mind. She didn't because she wanted to know the story he'd been telling himself all this time.

"Your lips are soft. I make you leave the marker on your desk, the whiteboard half-filled with the slowly accumulating facts of the case. You drive."

She always drove. He'd gotten the details right; he always did.

"You drive us to your apartment. I come upstairs with you, I brush my fingers across your neck-"

Her skin was alive, coming awake at the soft, soft touch of his hand.

"I kiss you-" a gentle touch of his lips against her cheek was all she got. "We make love."

She couldn't look away from him, couldn't move. Waves of desire rooted her to the chair, her knee between his, one of her hands curled around the seat's edge.

"You let me love you, Kate." He was using a finger to trail down her throat, the buttons of her shirt, then back up again. "My daughter goes off to college, but you let me love you. As much as I can. As often as I can. One night I take you to a spot beside the reflecting pool at the Botanic Gardens, just us in the whole place, the flowers in the moonlight, my hand at the back of your neck."

Her body was hot with it, arousal jolting through her like a lightning strike, immediate and intense.

"You sit on a bench and I drop to my knee. I ask you to marry me-"

She wouldn't live through this story. As ridiculous and romantic and completely out of character as it was, it was doing things to her she couldn't stop.

"The wedding is there, at the reflecting pool. You're always beautiful. But there. Then-" He shrugged and let his fingers drift down her arm. "You're amazing. You're looking only at me."

She couldn't look at him now. She would tremble, and that was unacceptable. That was weak, and she was strong. She'd have to keep being strong to survive this.

"When we have our first child-"

Oh God.

"The baby is perfect, all the little fingers, all the tiny toes. You picked out the name, you've got our child-"

Kate kissed him, hard, her mouth silencing his story, her body vibrating with need. To make it true, make it exist, all of it, despite the implausibility of her ever doing most of those things.

He unleashed all of it into his kiss back, the fantasy and the reality twisting together in the space between their bodies, his hand against her neck like it might've been in his story.

Kate broke away first, struggling to breathe, struggling to remember where she was. She jumped at a loud footfall, looking up, and the nurse was heading their way.

"If you're not feeling light-headed, Mr. Castle, you're free to go."

Castle looked at Kate, laced his fingers through hers. "I'm feeling light-headed. I think I'll stay right here."


	2. Chapter 2

She went down the steps ahead of him, out of the blood mobile and onto the sidewalk. Guys were still in line; she could see the flame of Alexis's hair in the lobby of the 12th.

His daughter.

His baby. Perfect little fingers-

Her chest was tight; she felt Castle at her side and glanced at him, swallowing hard.

"It was fiction, Kate. Just a story," he said, as if he'd read the look on her face and was trying to soothe her.

She didn't want to be soothed.

"Want me to tell you *how much* of that story was fiction?"

He stumbled on the sidewalk; she kept walking, let him catch up again before she looked at him. His face held that adorable blank panic, the eyes dark with hesitation, his mouth parted in surprise.

"How much?" he said, a little breathless. He reached for her hand and she let him take it. "How much was fiction?'

"Most," she said, slipping a sly smile his way. "For now."

"For now," he echoed and his thumb brushed across her wrist, down her palm between their joined hands.

She hummed agreement under her breath, looking away from him, concentrating intently on the feel of his fingers. The place where they were joined.

"Where are we going?" he muttered.

"Away," she said thoughtlessly, then shut her mouth to try to arrange a better sentence. "Someplace. . .quieter." Well, it wasn't a complete sentence, but it at least sounded articulate. Rather than. . .breathless.

"We need quiet for this?"

This? She knew what she wanted to do to him, with him, and she didn't want to be quiet.

"Not. . .maybe just privacy," she said instead. Because she wanted to press her body against his and seal their mouths together. She wanted to push him against a wall and watch his eyes flash arousal. And maybe she wanted to hear him moan her name in that low, rich voice. "Okay, maybe quiet too."

His hand squeezed around hers then, his gait drew closer so that their hips bumped or their arms tangled. She wanted to shake him off and she wanted him pressed against her at the same time. She didn't know what she wanted, except to find a way to get her skin against his indecently, and not innocently like it was.

She was done with teasing.

"Through here," she said, tugging him to the revolving door of the Excelsior Hotel. Instead of waiting for her to push through, he crowded in behind her, his chest brushing her back, the heat of him taking up all the room between the glass doors.

They shuffled forward, one of his hands sliding around her waist as she stumbled in the tight space. His fingers splayed across her taut stomach, keeping their balance, his pinky brushing low, his thumb at her sternum. How had she missed just how broad his hands were?

The thump of the door spinning signalled her in time, and they spilled out into the lobby. Suddenly soundless. The thick carpet trapped all noise, so that there was only the shush of the fountain and the in and out of his breath on her neck.

Kate blinked in the wide lobby, her heart pounding furiously. Decorum, quiet, modesty, the trappings of her childhood, the politeness and manners called her back to herself.

She had just led Rick Castle into a _hotel_. This wasn't what she meant.

She'd just meant to find some privacy, not-

Not-

Castle bent over her, pulling her hips back against his, his mouth suddenly at her neck so that her knees gave a little, his body catching hers. When she sucked in a breath, it smelled like him, tasted like him.

"Kate. Where exactly are you taking us?"

She lifted a cool hand to his neck, her fingers glancing across his skin, her head back, her brain swirling and muddled and-

What had she done?

"I don't know," she confessed. That was *not* a moan.

"You ditched work to play hooky with me. . .in a hotel?"

"No," she breathed, shaking her head, but she could feel the hard edge of his collarbone under the back of her skull, the tossing of her hair more like passion than denial.

"I didn't think so," he murmured, but his lips were traveling the column of her neck to her ear.

"I can't - I don't know why I-"

At her jaw, he chuckled, rich and low, and she couldn't understand how she had lost control of this so quickly.

"Since it wasn't your bright idea, can it be mine instead?"

Her breath caught in her chest, her eyes opened slowly to see the ornate lobby, the people lifting eyebrows at their sudden display, the hotel employee steadily making his way towards them, a hundred years of upper crust New York society looking down on them for their impropriety.

"No," she hissed and spun around, trapping her flaming face against his cheek, panic rising in her throat, her hands clutching the lapels of his jacket.

"Come on, Kate," he murmured, sliding his hand to the back of her head and cradling her against him.

She thought, for a second, that he was urging her to. . .to check in with him, but instead, he was turning and leading them back out of the hotel, this time through the regular door, his hand under her jacket at the small of her back.

When Kate stepped out onto the sidewalk and back into the pedestrian traffic, disappointment ran over her in waves, hot and embarrassing and pathetic. She turned her face away from him, tried to quell the panic that also wanted to make itself known again.

Castle grabbed her hand and tugged her out of the milleu of tourists, pulling her towards the crosswalk and away from the hotel entrance. He didn't let them stop until they were waiting for the light to change.

He stood too close at the curb and crowded against her back, one hand sliding from her lower back to her hipbone to keep her against him, his mouth suddenly at her ear, his lips soft, gentle, understanding.

"Kate, when we make love - when - I want it to be in my bed. Or yours. Not a hotel. Not a quick and dirty secret."

Her mouth went dry. All she could do was focus on the blinking hand across the street telling them _Don't Walk_.

"When we do, Kate, when I finally have you, it won't be an accident, it won't be a whim, it won't be one night. You'll come to me, and you'll take everything I want to give."

The crosswalk sign switched to _Walk._


	3. Chapter 3

They walked back.

He kept his mouth in check. Besides, it wasn't words he wanted to give her. It was something lot more. . .visceral. He used the long walk back to quiet the jangling in his nerves, to still the yammering in his blood, to ride out the cresting wave of his need. He was trying to get it back down to just mere arousal, the lazy and ever-present kind, the usual kind, and not the kick in the guts craving to have her. Have her.

Once he thought maybe he could look at her without his mouth going dry or his heart pounding or his body revolting and doing exactly what it wanted to, Rick Castle reached across the distance between them and took her hand.

He watched the side of her face for answers, but all he could read was confusion. She was holding his hand, had actually squeezed his fingers when he slid his palm to hers, but she was silent. Still.

At the next light, with the 12th in sight, a trickle of dread started winding its way through his innards.

"Kate."

He was still watching her face; he couldn't miss the wince at the sound of her name on his lips. She kept her eyes on the crosswalk sign, not looking at him.

"Kate. Let me take you out tonight."

At that, her eyes darted towards his. "Out?"

"A date."

He saw the corner of her lip edge upward. "Don't you think it's a little bit. . .late for that?"

"No. Not at all. Perfect time for it."

She glanced at him again, then back to the light. It changed suddenly and the crowd was already moving, pushing against them, and he hustled to keep up with her. Her hand was still around his. She did have that Mona Lisa smile ghosting her lips.

The 12th loomed ahead of them, the blood mobile still parked outside, and Kate stopped suddenly, tugging him to the concrete edifice, pulling him out of sight of the lobby.

And his daughter.

"Tonight," she said. Her back was against the concrete, the dark hair and slash of her eyes, the angled line of her jaw like a Roman frieze.

He nodded. "Tonight."

"Okay."

"Okay?" He gave her a mock disappointed pout. "Just okay?"

She sighed, rolling her eyes, but he saw the relief in her shoulders. "Yes, yes, tonight. I'm. . .looking forward to it."

"Liar," he whispered, but he was smiling. "You're terrified."

She huffed and tried to yank her hand away from his. He wouldn't let it go. And she couldn't be trying all that hard; he was pretty sure she had tricks up her sleeve to get away from him if she really wanted to.

"Detective Beckett, you're afraid to go out with me," he grinned.

She shied away from his gaze and set her face against him, back to the marbled beauty, the cold. But she couldn't keep him from seeing her; he'd discovered the Rosetta stone of her body language long ago. She was afraid, but she was eager.

"I'm not afraid. What time?" she said, throwing him a triumphant look.

"What time will your day be over?"

She sighed. "Good point."

"Whenever you're ready to leave for the night, Kate, I'll leave with you."

"But I-" She stopped and shook her head, and he knew. He could see that too.

"You want to dress up for me?" he murmured, and couldn't keep away from her mouth any longer. He brushed a gentle kiss to the delicate arrangement of her features: her pressed lips, her wrinkled nose, her frowning forehead. "I'll admit. I might want to change clothes. Shave. For you."

"You don't have to shave," she said on a rush of breath, her fingers suddenly grazing his chin.

He filed that away for later, memorizing the naked heat in her eyes. Naked heat. Ah, now he was just pathetic. Using his fake character to describe his muse.

She was more alive, more deadly, more poignant; she had depth and substance and breath that he could steal as he kissed her again. She rubbed her jaw against his; she was letting the slight stubble scratch her skin. He waited a beat, breathless, before breaking away from her. She still had her hand against his jaw.

"How about this?" he said roughly, trapping her hand against his cheek and pressing a kiss to her palm.

"I like this," she whispered back.

Where had the playfulness come from? Why had it disappeared? These were the mysteries of Kate Beckett. He might be able to read every line of her eyes, but why they were there, and where they had come from, the authorship - those elements were still wrapped in mist.

"I like this too, but I'm pretty sure you deserve dinner first." He curled his fingers around hers and let some of the need, the want seep through his grip. "Dinner and maybe something. . .special."

"Castle-"

"Nothing too much; I'll figure something out. How about you text me when you leave, to give me a heads up? And then I'll pick you up an hour later."

"You won't. . .come back up with me?"

He wanted to. He wanted to watch her, daydream about what he might do to her later. But he also wanted to let her marinate for awhile, sit in her own expectant anticipation while he planned out the perfect date. And he had Alexis downstairs here.

"I should sit with Alexis, see where I can help. Make up for skipping out on her. But you and me. Later."

She chewed on her lower lip, her back against the concrete of the 12th, his body crowding hers. He waited for her to get it settled in her mind, for her to get used to the idea of seeing him specifically in this light, for her to process the weight of his secret, now shared.

He was ready for it. She seemed. . .willing to participate.

"Okay. I'll. . .yeah." She nodded, and while the underlying anxiety was still in her eyes, the set of her mouth, there wasn't any hesitance.

"Good." He leaned in a little closer, glad for the relative anonymity of this corner of the building. "And Kate?"

She watched him, her eyes not blinking, her chest taking shallow breaths. Castle couldn't resist, kissed the corner of that parted mouth. She tasted rich and entirely too good for him. He left her mouth wanting more, but drew back to look in her eyes.

"Kate."

She let out a soft keen of her breath, her fingers flexing against his hand.

"Wear something sexy."


End file.
